IPW

Mini Ice Age Baffles New Yorkers

The blizzard is over. It was a really good one. Probably the best I've experienced outside the Cascade Mountains. Last year we had decent blizzard preceded by a decent freak-out, but this year's freak-out and subsequent blizzard RULES. Yesterday the snow was just grabbing a foothold when I finished updating the blog. It got a firm grasp shortly after and really started to pile it on. The media is saying it is the second biggest storm in the history of the city which is amazing because the city's history goes back to the Ice Age when there was 700 feet of snow covering Manhattan Island. Well, I guess it wasn't really a city then, just some rocks and a log lying across the East River, the world's longest suspension log at the time. Either way, we did not get 700 feet, but we did get about two which sounds a bit low now.

I love snow. The problem is, and I know this, I love it too much. I love the way it alters the landscape so that nothing is familiar. I love that it cleans almost every sense by just being in the air and on the ground. The air smells sharp and clean even if you are standing near garbage (in this city, you ARE standing near garbage) Last night there was just the faintest wisp of wood-burning fire in the air and nothing else. Sounds are deadened, you can hear only the wind and the tiny pops of snowflakes bouncing and melting on the shell of you ear. A sidewalk that might of hours earlier been strewn with newspapers and broken shopping carts turn into a study in shades of white, rolling drifts with wind sharpened spines... Okay, that is what I mean by loving too much. But what I say is true. Snow reduces a hectic environment into extremely simple levels of subtlety that you might finally be able to respond to with all your senses focused. That is until the bastards from upstairs run outside at 2 am and rip into the unblemished surface of the new-fallen snow, deconstruct the gentle white mounds that have replaced the cars, and shout drunkenly at each other while pummeling themselves with snowballs. You see I am a jealous lover of snow. The inevitable desecration tears at me, even as I watch the flakes build layer upon layer of fragile perfect skin. I know it is inevitable so I try to walk as long as I can in it, while it can fall in behind me and cover my tracks, and be alone in the silence and still.

*musical interlude*

Like most snow days, we are awakened by the Polish workmen shoveling the sidewalk, shovel-fulls of my beloved perfection heaved into the street. But today was different, after three jarring scrapes, the sounds stopped. There had to have been 15 inches on the ground, and more falling steadily. The shovel-men knew they were beat, and retreated indoors to deal with the drifts of snow on the staircase leading to the roof. Some idiot, like the 2 o'clock revelers, had left the roof door open welcoming feet of snow indoors to cover the top flights of the stairs. The snow had invaded the building! Good for it. We went for a walk, further demolishing the yet unspoiled surface (better us than Them) and marveled at the amount of snow that had disappeared the smaller cars on the street. Well, the snow and the snow-plows that occasionally came by. It was really beautiful, but the best thing was that there was really no signs of it letting up. The Weather had NYC against the ropes and it was going to keep hammering down blows until we gave up and drank lattes indoors. This city isn't the most industrious in the world for nothing though, and likes a good challenge. After our lattes, we got on the bus (The buses were running! Or, I should say A bus was running) and headed down to Prospect Park where we intended to snowshoe. I thought there might finally be enough snow to make it easier to snowshoe through the park than walk and we were prepared with the equipment (thanks to my step-brother Phil who mailed them out to us last November.) Unfortunately, the first bus we took was also our last. When we tried to transfer to the B69 it never showed, and neither did any other bus for the hour we waited. Finally we were forced to walk through Ft. Green where there was a minor insurrection amongst my crew. First Lieutenant Magda got cold feet and wanted to turn back. She literally had cold feet. Faced with possible desertion, we found the G train and went underground for the rest of the way. Luckily, because of the snow storm, it took us all the way to the park which it doesn't normally do. We were in. We suited up and activated our gear. Snow-shoes on, we headed off the well beaten trail, traversed by hundreds of under-equipped civilians, into the brush. We made it about twenty feet before my crew rebelled yet again. She claimed the snow-shoes were flipping snow down her pants (somehow) and we seemed to be sinking in quite far despite the shoes. Finally I caved. Deep in the woods and surrounded by curious pedestrians, we took the snow-shoes off and walked through the park like normal people.

The park was amazing, full of cheering families of all makes and models, a winter-wonderland. The one small rise that passes for hill around here was covered with hundreds of sledders, the snow beaten to a flat icy sheet. Because of its slickness, sledders upended many a fleeing onlooker too slow to get out of the way. It was good fun, like a Victorian Christmas carol, but without the creepy guy in chains nagging at you about your past, present and future.

Finally we ended up at our friends Tom and Jen's in near-by Park Slope where we were plied with spicy hot cocoa and ak-maks. At some point in the evening we all smelled the makings of an electrical fire, so we bid adieu before I would be forced to write something unpleasant in this blog like, "Were burned to death". Actually, we ascertained that the fire was under control before we left, and, leaving the buses to be abandoned by the side of the road, we took the subway home without incident. I will be providing pictures as soon as I figure out how...it isn't working.

Posted by ian at February 12, 2006 11:09 PM